How a Lack of Data Quality Hurts Business

How a Lack of Data Quality Hurts Business

Many managers don't trust their data to make important business decisions. Instead, they rely on "gut feelings." Find out how IT execs can improve data quality.

Fleeting Faith

Just 44% of the data management professionals surveyed said they trust their organization's data to make important business decisions.

Just a Hunch

52% said they rely on "gut feelings" to make decisions based on data.

Room for Improvement

Only 39% of the survey respondents said their organization is proactive regarding data quality, or is achieving optimized data quality.

Disjointed Process

Just 25% said their organization has centralized control of data quality with a single director, while 56% said there is some centralization, but many departments adopt their own data quality strategies.

Emerging Roles

51% of C-level executives surveyed said they plan to hire a chief data officer to support centralized data management, and 43% said they plan to hire data protection officers.

Tech-Driven

62% of the survey respondents said that IT has the most influence on the handling of data.

Only a minority of IT and business professionals said they trust their organization's data to make key business decisions, according to a recent survey from Experian Data Quality. The accompanying "2017 Global Data Management Benchmark Report" reveals that most survey respondents said they're forced to rely on "gut feelings" to make important decisions about data. Data quality remains critical here, but relatively few organizations take a proactive approach to address this need, much less achieve optimized results. It doesn't help that few companies have completely centralized data quality control through a single director. To address these issues—and boost sales and customer loyalty in the process—organizations are starting to hire chief data officers and take on major data cleansing projects. "As organizations strive to call themselves 'data driven,' the need for increased governance and data management practices will become even more important," according to the report. "At the forefront of priorities this year, increasing revenue and better serving customers emerge as the two key areas where data will play a major role. To achieve these aims, establishing a foundational level of trust in this data will be a necessary prerequisite." An estimated 1,400 data management professionals and managers took part in the research.